


It's Delicious (Try the Grey Stuff)

by MarginalMadness



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarginalMadness/pseuds/MarginalMadness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their way back to Earth and with the Cerberus crew gone, Garrus wants to make sure Shepard is still eating right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Delicious (Try the Grey Stuff)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from Tumblr - 'Garrus tries to cook Shepard dinner.'

"What kind of meat are you looking for?" The turian attendant asked.

"Excuse me?" Garrus replied, taken aback.

"For the sauce? What kind of meat do you want? The dish is traditionally made using ground beef-" 

"Beef?"

"From the earth animal called a cow-"

"Cow?" Garrus repeated nonplussed. The attendant carried on talking, heedless of Garrus’ obvious confusion.

”- but turkey can sometimes be substituted, or lamb. Or there is the asari variation using-“

"Beef will be fine." Garrus interjected before the turian could start listing Asari meat products.

"Your call. If this is your first time making it probably best not to experiment too much." Said the attendant, ringing up the purchase on the HUD screen in front of him, Garrus could only nod in agreement. "And what kind of sauce? I’m guessing traditional bolognese, but spicy? Herby? Extra garlic? No garlic? Mushrooms?" Garrus looked at the man with something akin to fear as he just kept rattling off variations of sauce; Garrus’ visor unable to keep up, and for the first time in a very long while Garrus was faced with a problem he didn’t know how he was going to solve.

* * * * *

"Commander Shepard, Officer Vakarian is at your door, requesting permission to come in. Shall I allow him entrance?"

Shepards head involuntarily looked at the ceiling, towards the disembodied voice of EDI and then to the door of her cabin. “Sure, EDI. Send him in.”

"As you wish Commander." EDI replied and the door wooshed open to reveal one Garrus Vakarian with one very large tray in his hands.

Shepard scrambled off her bed where she was reading reports and ran up the stairs to greet him, catching a falling glass as it tumbled off the unsteady tray. “What’s this?” she smiled at the sight before her.

"Um? Room service?" Garrus’ voice was unsure, as most of his attention was on the tray in front of him.

"That’s funny, I don’t remember ordering any room service." Shepard teased, taking the other glass and the bottle of wine from the tray.

"Complements of the handsome turian down on the crew deck. Now that Gardner is gone he wanted to make sure you had a proper meal before you set down back on Earth." With the wine no longer unbalancing the tray, holding it steady as he navigated his way down the stairs was much easier. He slid it onto the low coffee table and turned back to Shepard, wrapping his arms around her waist and pullied her close to bring their foreheads together affectionately. "Also from the handsome turian on the crew deck."

"I’ll have to think of a way to thank him" Shepard smiled wrapping her arms around his cowl.

"Oh I’m sure you’ll think of something, you could start by being kind about his cooking."

"His cooking?" Shepard pulled away enough to look over at the coffee table. "You cooked for me?" 

Garrus ducked his head in embarrassment. “Ah…heated things up may be a more accurate definition of what I actually did.”

Shepard leaned up and give him a quick kiss on his mandible. “Still, thank you. You get points for effort.”

Garrus stepped aside and motioned to the sofas, “M’lady.” Shepard rolled her eyes but her mouth quirked up in amusement as she sat herself down on the sofa. “I present to you, bolognese a La Vakarian.” And he lifted the plastic covering off a plate of something Shepard suspected was supposed to be…food.

"You know spaghetti is Italian, not French right?" she asked to avoid looking at her plate.

"Shepard, I had to look up what a cow was on the extranet today. Baby steps."

She picked up her fork and stared down at the plate on the table in front of her. She was half concerned when it looked like it might be breathing and worried that Garrus might get offended if she shot it, and then she was worried because he gun was on the opposite side of the room.

"Well it certainly looks…" deadly…sentient…like husk brains… "like you put a lot of effort into it." She smiled weakly. Garrus’ mandibles fluttered with the complement as he sat down with his own plate of something turian appropriate. Why did they look the same shade of grey?

She carefully pulled a little bit of spaghetti with little to no sauce on it and twirled it on her fork before popping it into her mouth. As soon as she tried to chew she stopped, eyes wide in horror, the spaghetti was just dissolving into a thick tasteless paste. She swallowed with in audible gulp and took a deep breath through her mouth.

"I’m not an expert in human facial expressions but I’m guessing that’s not a good one?" Garrus asked.

Shepard tried to smile reassuringly. “I think you just overcooked the pasta a little bit, no big deal.”

"Oh." Shepard was no expert on reading turians either but she could hear the dejection in his voice.

"Its still pretty good for something you couldn’t taste yourself." he seemed somewhat placated by her reply and went back to eating his own food but Shepard could still feel his eyes on her as she stared down into the grey abyss that was bolognese a La Vakarian on her plate. She reached for her glass of wine (when was that poured?) and took a massive gulp before diving in, fork first. 

The goop a La Vakarian might even be the worst thing she had ever had in her mouth and considering a thrall of the Thorian has once managed to get some of its foul vomit in there, that was saying something.  She knew now that they grey colour came from an over abundance of mushrooms which were in chunks of varing sizes, she even suspected he might have pureéd some to make the sauce, the meat was overcooked and gritty like little stones, the onion was raw and crunchy, and there wasn’t a breath mint in the galaxy that was going to counteract the sheer amount of garlic that had been used. She swallowed slowly, calling on all of her N-school training not to throw up.

"So?" Garrus asked hopefully.

She stared at him in panic for a moment before forcing herself to smile. “It’s good! Thank you!” She quickly took another, albeit, smaller fork full and tried to swallow it quick enough not to taste it.

"That’s good. I’m glad. I suppose after what I heard about the rations on the first Normandy, it couldn’t get much worse."

She nodded in agreement, quickly downing the rest of her wine.  Putting the plate on the table, she slid closer to Garrus. “Thank you for this,” she kissed him on the mouth. “I’ve never had an alien boyfriend learn to cook for me before.”

He put his own plate down sliding an arm around her waist. “Boyfriend?”

"Boyfriend." She smiled kissing him again, moving to straddle his lap, as she did her foot accidentally kicked her plate, sending it crashing to the floor.

Garrus looked down at the mess mournfully. “You didn’t get to finish your dinner.”

Shepard leaned forward, hands running down his crest, eyes twinkling “How about we skip right to dessert?” 

 


End file.
